Wiedmaier Workouts: Dan Burns, Face-Off Wings

Editor's Note: Chad Wiedmaier, former Princeton All-American and current Hamilton Nationals defenseman and Towson Tigers' volunteer assistant coach, will be working with current college and pro lacrosse players to highlight their favorite exercise and its on-field application.

Dan Burns is up this week. He's one of the fastest middies in the game, and the former Terp, two-year Hamilton National and recently acquired Chesapeake Bayhawk uses that speed to be a monster on face-off wings. On Tuesday, he talked about how box jumps helped him improve his speed. Here, he talks about how balance and explosiveness come into play while taking face-offs.

Wing play is a very important part of a midfeilder's role. It's how I got on the field at Maryland when I was struggling as an offensive or defensive middie.

The main thing you focus on in box jumps is explosiveness and balance; those are things that are really important in wing play.

In the initial jump off the wing, if you're the first guy, you can box your man out the rest of the run into the ball, and that can give you a big advantage.

When you actually get in and you're waiting for your face-off guy to pop the ball out, the next thing you're worried about is beating your guy to the loose ball. When you have a guy on your back waiting for the ball to pop, the quick burst and first step from a box jump is going to come into play.